Jellybean wrote:
I'm not very knowledgeable about fragile x syndrome, so don't take this to be the 100% gospel truth about it... I believe it affects most sufferers in similar ways, but there are several ways it can manifest itself. Some have autism, some severe LD, some have all the physical features but others don't. Girls don't tend to get the condition as severely as boys possibly because the damage is to the x chromosome which girls have 2 of, whereas boys only have one. This would make sense therefore, that a girl with one damaged x chromosome and one regular one, would possibly not be as severely affected. It's a fascinating condition I'll give you that
When you're a girl, you're either
a) not a carrier
b) a carrier, but not afflicted (one fragile x, one regular x. With any Sex-linked trait, a good x chromosome cancels out the bad one, so you can't tell if the person is indeed a carrier)
c) an afflicted carrier (two crappy X chromosomes.
When you're a boy, you're either
a) an afflicted carrier (Fragile X and Regular Y chromosome)
b) not a carrier (good XY's)
That's what I learned last year in Science.
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